Anti-poverty campaigners have urged caution over claims that social mobility is on the rise for the first time in 30 years. A government report published this week said the social background of teenagers is now less important in determining educational achievement and income than it was in 1970. It found that ‘positive changes’ began in 2000 after three decades of stagnation in which children were unable to overtake their parents on the social ladder. The findings suggest some of the government’s key initiatives of recent years, such as Sure Start and inner-city academies, may be having an impact and that further planned spending on childcare and early years will be effective. But the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) argued the report used a narrow definition of social mobility that was restricted to employment outcomes. Kate Green, chief executive of CPAG, told New Start: ‘Those unable to access work should not be left socially excluded and their lives must be taken into account too. ‘Comparisons with wealthy countries that have greater social mobility than the UK make clear that it’s the gap between rich and poor in the UK that is at the root of low social mobility. We have to narrow this gap to succeed in creating the fair country we want.
This needs government to make the moral case for an end to Britain’s culture of inequality, which has not only left those at the bottom in financial crisis for years, but now has our whole economy in crisis. ‘The chancellor must start by making the investment needed to halve child poverty by 2010 as part of the economic rescue package in the pre-budget report.’

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6 November 2008
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